Green Lantern – A Review
Green Lantern, the more sci-fi focused DC Universe friend of Superman and Batman has his time in the spot light in the aptly titled “Green Lantern”. Starring Ryan Reynolds as the movie’s namesake and protagonist, it tells a wild adventure of pilot Hal Jordan (Reynolds) being chosen to wear a “not-magic” green ring from outer space. This ring gives the wearer many powers including the ability to fly and create temporary physical objects with his mind. It’s a powerful ring that has a deep and colorful back story. To its credit “Green Lantern” does a good job explaining the sometimes odd extra terrestrial origin of the ring and the Green Lantern Corps of warriors that wield the rings. Unfortunately, many other aspects of the movie do not stand up as well as the delivery of the back story. **Alert: Spoilers Ahead**
A lot of time is spent up front establishing the characters on earth, and building a normal life around Jordan. This is the one the stories biggest stumbling blocks. Early on, the character development is awkward. Jordan is hastily referred to multiples in the story as a “let down”, quitter and “asshole”, in an effort to describe his character. This is positioned very obviously as the seed from which the hero Green Lantern is grown. Blatantly stating the personality of Hal Jordan is one thing but actually showing that personality is another and at no point in the movie is Jordan ever seen as anything but a charming successful pilot. Jordan’s character is supposed to be psychologically damaged by an event that happened in his childhood. That event was meant to have emotional resonance in the film, but the scene falls flat and comes off as predictable, too over the top and cheesy. This combined with Reynolds never being given the opportunity to be the aforementioned “asshole” leaves the slacker/quitter role unfulfilled. Flimsy initial character establishment makes it hard to believe the growth he is supposed to experience throughout the film.
Reynolds does a good job bringing his brand of one liners and off kilter delivery of them to the table, but the role itself wasn’t realized in a way that allowed him to stretch his ability as an actor. Sure, he’s primarily a comedic actor and he’s doing his best to be the white Will Smith, but Reynolds has yet to have a breakout “actor’s” role like “The Pursuit of Happyness” or “Ali”. Green Lantern doesn’t help in this department. Some of the line delivery between him and female lead Blake Lively is cringe worthy (particularly during the dogfight near the beginning of the film). To be fair, I think Reynolds did the best he could with what he was given, but many scenes could have used a few more takes and portions of the dialog between several characters should have been trimmed. His performance brings much needed humor to the film.
Once the Green Lantern action picks up, so does the movie. For the most part, the visuals are amazing. The issue with the “controversial” Green Lantern energy suit is not the lack of white gloves but the physical design of the mask. Like a badly cropped pair of pants, the mask sits about halfway down Reynolds nose in a seemingly unexplainable position. This combined with the size of Reynolds nose and the angles the mask is shown in frame makes it look silly. A further tweaking of the design, maybe even making the mask thicker would have helped the entire suit not look so awkward.
The Green Lantern planet of Oa has a strong design and the immensity of the universe and its Green inhabitants is displayed well. Green Lanterns Tomar-Re, Kilowog and Sinestro bring the DC continuity to light and move the core story along well. Here in the story is where I believe director Martin Campbell assumed the viewer stopped paying attention. Through a few better placed edits and/or cuts the introduction of Hal Jordan into the Lanterns would have made more sense. Specifically a scene where Hal Jordan unknowingly spouts off population information for multiple sectors in the cosmos has Jordan questioning Tomar-Re how he already knows that information. Tomar-Re responds stating that during the Green Lantern-ing process (a process that visually looked solely like a reason to get Ryan Reynolds in his skivvies) Jordan was implanted with massive amounts of Green Lantern related information. This is all well and good, until that scene is immediately followed by a 10 sequence with Jordan asking Tomar-Re, Kilowog and Sinestro questions about very basic Green Lantern info. Apparently the data dump that Jordan experienced didn’t include critical Lantern info like what planet he was on, who are all these green dudes, or by the way…you can fly now. The knowledge obtained during this process wasn’t called upon at any other point in the movie, which makes me wonder why that line didn’t end up on the cutting room floor.
Another point in the film that just didn’t make sense was in the second act, when the Sinestro was speaking with the Guardians regarding his plans to combat the primary villain Parallax. The Guardians had just revealed that Parallax was a former Guardian that had been corrupted by the essence of Fear. When Sinestro suggests the construction a ring made out of that same essence, the Guardians put up no alternatives and agreed it was a good idea. Things like this just defy logical explanation. This happened again near the final battle when Hal Jordan just shows up in front of both Sinestro and the Guardians, magically knowing their plans to fight Parallax despite it never being shown that he was privy to what they were discussing.
Green Lantern is an early nominee for “Summer Movie” of the summer. Much like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Lantern places priority on spectacle and flash. The script is written with 13 year old boys in mind. One line quotable blurbs are all over the place and simple plot holes and questionable character actions are constantly at battle with the plausibility of the fantastical story. It’s fun and Reynolds does a great job being a toned down version of himself, but anyone looking for serious movie going experience can check out early. In the pantheon of super hero movies, Green Lantern falls in the bottom half of the barrel, next to Daredevil, Fantastic Four 2, and Batman Forever.
Verdict: Bring some popcorn, your kids will love it.
